Early Life and College Career
Walton was born in La Mesa, California, the son of Gloria Anne (née Hickey) and William Theodore "Ted" Walton. His listed adult playing height was 6 feet 11 inches; it has been reported that Walton was actually taller (7 feet 2 inches, or more), but did not like being categorized as a seven-footer.
He played high school basketball at Helix High School. At the age of 17, Walton played for the United States men's national basketball team at the 1970 FIBA World Championship. He played college basketball for John Wooden at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) from 1971 to 1974, winning the national title in 1972 over Florida State and again in 1973 with an 87–66 win over Memphis State in which Walton made an impressive 21 of 22 field goal attempts and scored 44 points. The Walton-led 1971–72 UCLA basketball team had a record of 30–0, in the process winning its games by an average margin of more than 30 points. He was the backbone of two consecutive 30–0 seasons and was also part of UCLA's NCAA men's basketball record 88-game winning streak. The UCLA streak contributed to a personal winning streak that lasted almost five years, in which Walton's high school, UCLA freshman (freshmen were ineligible for the varsity at that time), and UCLA varsity teams did not lose a game from the middle of his junior year of high school to the middle of his senior year in college.
Bill Walton was the 1973 recipient of the James E. Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the United States. Walton also received the USBWA College Player of the Year and Naismith College Player of the Year as the top college basketball player in the country three years in a row while attending UCLA, at the same time earning Academic All-American honors three times. Some college basketball historians rate Walton as the greatest who ever played the game at the college level. In Bill Walton's senior year during the 1973–74 season, the school's 88-game winning streak ended with a 71–70 loss to the University of Notre Dame Fighting Irish. During the same season, UCLA's record seven consecutive national titles was broken when North Carolina State defeated the Bruins 80–77 in double overtime in the NCAA semi-finals. With Walton's graduation in 1974 and legendary Bruin coach John Wooden's retirement after UCLA's 1975 national title, the unprecedented UCLA dynasty came to an end.
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